Reporting of serious incidents during labour must improve, says college

Investigations into cases of stillbirth, neonatal death, and severe brain injury occurring during labour at full term must improve, a report by the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists has said.1

This is the first report of the Each Baby Counts initiative that was launched by the college in October 2014 and aims to halve the number of such cases by 2020.

The review found that 921 such babies were born in the UK in 2015. Of these, 654 (71%) were classified as having severe brain injuries, and there were 147 (16%) early neonatal deaths and 119 (13%) stillbirths.